Posts Tagged ‘THQ’

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Already out on 360 (where it’s received bewilderingly mixed reviews), arena shooter Nexuiz is due to appear on PC on the 3rd May, but the beta is on already. Keys seem to be vanishing fast, but Alienware (they distributing the beta) say another pile will be added on Saturday. This is us giving you a heads up about that.

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THQ’s seen better days. The gaming world has all but left it in a gutter inches away from death’s door, bleeding worrisome amounts of money. Worse still, the struggling publisher took another set of brass knuckles to the teeth in the form of a radical downsizing of its great MMO hope: Dark Millennium Online. The Warhammer-40K-themed behemoth has been stripped of its two-ton subscription-fueled MMO supersuit, leaving its single-player and multi-player bits flapping freely in the air. How, though, does that work? Will I explore a desolate world, spamming an empty trade channel for [friendship] x 1?

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Eurogamer has news that THQ’s MMO project, Warhammer 40,000: Dark Millennium Online, has been refocused as a single-player and multi-player online game. The game had previously been rumoured to be cancelled. THQ boss Brian Ferrell said: “Based on changing market dynamics and the additional investment required to complete the game as an MMO, we believe the right direction for us is to shift the title from an MMO to a premium experience with single and multiplayer gameplay, robust digital content and community features.” Around 120 people across the Relic and Vigil studios have been laid off as a result of the change, which is depressing news. Hopefully we’ll firm up exactly what sort of game we’re left soon. A 40k RPG with online bits? Could be… And that would be okay by me.

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I took to the role of Death with great aplomb when I played Darksiders II recently and later that same day I had the chance to speak with game director Marvin Donald. Although we didn’t question the nature of Death in an existential fashion, we did discuss how he feels about his game being compared to The Legend of Zelda, the stranger worlds through which Death walks, whether this will be a four game series and how much we both like collecting loot.

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I didn’t play Darksiders until its PC release, which meant I’d already heard a million people compare it to Zelda and God of War. What a pleasant surprise to play the game and find that it had character of its own and kept rewarding me with new toys throughout its substantial and entertainingly silly story. Sitting down to play the sequel I thought it would just be more of the same. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

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Times are hard at THQ and that’s relative to the general hardness of the hour for the majority of people who rely on one of the world’s known currencies to secure food and shelter. The publisher is under threat of NASDAQ delisting, with its stock currently below $1 a share, and over the next year 240 staff will be losing their jobs. The company has shared its release schedule, which shows that Metro: Last Light is now scheduled for an early 2013 release. Other releases of note are the new game from Left 4 Dead’s Turtle Rock. That’s due between April 2013 and March 2014, as are Dark Millennium Online and Del Toro’s inSANE. Before April 2013, it’s Metro and “unannounced core titles”.

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I’m so tired this morning that if horseman Death came charged toward me, I’d limply reach out a hand to touch his scythe and embrace the sweet, sweet sleep that awaits. But fortunately he’s fictional, and I’ll wake up soon. He is, however, to feature in Darksiders II, and if you needed more proof than my word, there are screenshots of said game below. They’re new, and they’ve got big, cross monsters in them.

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A mistake Saints Row: The Third didn’t make, but always seemed horribly likely to, was promise more than it could deliver. Those trailers, those terrifying spoof gameshows, the hype of such a scale of silliness and violence, was all delivered. Which is one of the many reasons why it was one of 2011’s best games. But how do you follow it up? With a weird cat-thing and his twisted competitive event, Genkibowl VII.

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Rumours wildly frothed out of the internet this weekend regarding the financial peril of THQ. This chap, an IGDA fellow, said that Vigil’s Warhammer 40k MMO had been cancelled. He went to explain that the cost would be beyond the current wallet of the troubled company, and that it had also returned its Disney licence. GamesIndustry also has anonymous sources claiming that the in-development MMO is for sale. Newschums VG247 have picked up a contradictory statement from THQ Australia, which states: “THQ has not cancelled its 2014 line-up, and has not made any decisions regarding the planned MMO.”

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Next Tuesday will see the release of the first DLC for last year’s fantastic Saints Row: The Third, Genki Bowl VII. What is it? According to the details we’ve received, it’s some sort of in-game event that will feature a number of games. And they are… Sexy Kitten Yarngasm, Sad Panda Skyblazing, Angry Tiger’s Apocalypse Genki, and Super Ethical PR Opportunity. Yes indeed. There’s a teaser trailer and some screenshots below.

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Darksiders II was also revealed at the ridiculous VGA Spike thing. THQ’s sequel to, well, Darksiders, has been quiet since July, when we took a look at it. But it was waiting for the annual fartfest to reveal itself a new teaser trailer, and indeed its release date. Which will be, oh, “Summer 2012”. Well, it’s better than “TBA”.

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THQ have announced that Obsidian are making a South Park RPG: “South Park: The Game” is an epic role-playing adventure that will allow the user to befriend Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny and explore the quiet little mountain town like never before.” Parker and Stone are apparently going to be producing the script, performing the dialogue, and generally helping out, with the Californian dev team doing the dev work. Game Informer apparently have the game for their January cover, as teased here, at which point more information will be revealed.

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Despite its grotesquely high bodycount and the horrible and humiliating ways in which it rises, the utter absurdity of Saints Row: The Third makes it one of the silliest games of this or any other year. In celebration of the ludicrous actions that the inhabitants of Steelport are performing, Volition have added a map with a live feed of actions across the city to the game’s website. Unfortunately, because so many people are playing, it’s mostly updating with run of the mill vehicular manslaughter and lethal blows to the balls. But the far more entertaining stat tracker has captured some frankly alarming information about what’s happened since launch.

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4A’s sequel to Metro 2033, Metro: Last Light, seems to have been slipping beneath our radar a bit. The post-apocalyptic original was so close to being proper good that it’s definitely worth keep an eye on what they’re up to next. With that in mind, we caught up with THQ’s Huw Beynon to find a bit more about what’s happening with the game, which is set for release in mid 2012.Read the rest of this entry »

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Having completed Saints Row: The Third, I’m the Earth’s most qualified person to tell you all about it. Having already detailed a great many elements of the game in two recent previews, below I take on the task of explaining why such an excessively immature game is in fact quite so very mature. The game is out tomorrow in the Americas, before a team of dedicated THQ staff begin frantically rowing across the vast ocean of the internet to release it in the UK on Friday. Read on to see Wot I think.

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Following on from my more general preview of Saints Row: The Third, this time I want to tell you about a few specifics. Some of the game’s more “esoteric” early moments. (And there are so very many more later on, that it would be a crime to reveal.) Here’s some more of what you can expect when the game comes out next week. This is where it gets weird.

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My fingers are shaking I type this. I’m not sure exactly what I’m posting, other than it’s a surreal advert for Saint’s Row: The Third. I have a vague fear that it might be attempting to subliminally control me, but I feel fine so far. Anyway, I showed it to John and he demanded we share it with you. And that everyone buys 12 copies of Saint’s Row: The Third and gives all their possessions away to the New World Order.Read the rest of this entry »

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What are you expecting from Saints Row: The Third? From the promotional material so far, it’s probably an awful lot. They’re promising the moon. I’ve had a good long play of the early stages of what’s obviously a huge game, so I’m beginning to get an idea of quite how it’s balancing it all.

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The latest trailer for Saints Row: The Third once again impresses upon us quite how outlandish the game is aiming to be. A game I’ve been playing all this week, and will bring you some thoughts on in an hour. But in the meantime, take a look at the barrage of nonsense that’s being crammed in there. Including, oddly, one scene that breaks the rules for what Volition don’t want revealed about the game ahead of launch. Go figure.

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Space Marine’s recently added co-op horde mode already has additional content on the way. Latin-Dalek-impersonating Exterminatus mode originally added two scenarios for free, but THQ are preparing to release another chunk of content called Chaos Unleashed. Keeping Chaos on a leash is like keeping a cat on a leash so this is a sensible move but what does it add to the game? For the price of “800 Microsoft Points or equivalent”, them being the world’s major currency apparently, Chaos Unleashed let’s you fight swarms of Orks and Imperial Guard as a ruddy great Chaos Marine.